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Bentley Continental GT
Worth selling the house for
My friend Ric has had them all: Aston Martin, Bugatti, Ferrari, Lamborghini,
Maserati. But Bentleys have never really appealed to him. Until now.
As soon as he saw the Continental GT and read the performance figures he put
in an order. “It looked good, can carry four people in reasonable comfort,
and promised to outperform the Ferrari 456GT. It met the old idea of a
Bentley as a fast transcontinental tourer. And Bentley’s win at Le Mans this
year was icing on the cake.”
It turns out that lots of supercar collectors feel the same way. Some 3,200
people have placed deposits for a Continental GT, all prepared to spend
£110,000 on a car they haven’t yet driven. A car which, below its tightly
contoured coupé body, is uncomfortably close in specification to the
Volkswagen Phaeton, an excessively heavy saloon that works well but which
few buy.
At last we have driven the much anticipated Continental GT, even as far as
John o’ Groats, and I can tell you that it blows away all of one’s
preconceptions. Sure, the 6 litre W12 engine, the air suspension, many of
its systems and some of the body structure come from the Phaeton, while the
four-wheel-drive system and six-speed automatic transmission are from the
Audi A8. It weighs a massive 5,258lb, yet feels like a roadgoing jet, its
twin-turbocharged 552bhp engine propelling it to 60mph in 4.8sec and a
maximum speed said to be in excess of 190mph.
Bentley, now part of the Volkswagen Group and divorced from Rolls-Royce, which
belongs to BMW, decided that the vehicle to re-establish the brand was not a
huge luxury limousine or an out-and-out mid-engined racer but a generous
two-door 2+2 coupé — a classic British Grand Tourer. There are such cars in
its heritage, notably the elegant and surprisingly fast 1950s Continental R
Type, which gave its name to the new model.
It looks good, in an opulent way, and of course features beautifully finished
wood veneers and the finest leather. You find all the latest automotive
technology here, from electronic stability control to an electronic parking
brake, multiple airbags to four-position adaptive damping. But that doesn’t
prepare you for the way it drives.
The Continental GT isn’t a particularly large car (it is about the same length
as a Jaguar XK8) but it is unusually wide. Yet the precision of the steering
is such that it can be placed on the road with inch-perfect accuracy and it
has the agility of a much smaller, lighter car.
The combination of four-wheel drive, self-levelling air suspension and
automatically adjusting dampers gives it excellent cornering poise, and the
brakes — reportedly the biggest of any production car — are of course
reassuringly powerful.
Bentley claims the Continental GT is the world’s fastest four-seater, quicker
than an Aston Martin or a Ferrari 456. It is certainly not like either of
those, being easier and gentler to drive, and although it makes a
distinctive sound in the middle of its rev range it is not the music of a
traditional V12 sports car.
That is explained by the nature of the engine which was, in effect, created by
joining two narrow-angle Volkswagen V6s side by side. It is amazingly
compact for a 12-cylinder engine, yet under the bonnet there is barely a
millimetre to spare. It is built to Bentley’s specification at Crewe, where
it is installed in bodyshells from Germany.
The turbocharged W12 motor is what makes the Continental GT what it is: a
wickedly fast but effortless performer. Engineers talk about “flat” torque
curves and this one has just that, producing maximum torque of 479 lb ft
from 1600rpm to 6,000rpm. The automatic transmission, which can be
over-ridden with paddles behind the steering wheel, doesn’t need all six
gears but shifts between them with an elegant smoothness.
The name Continental GT is supposed to evoke a car that can be driven long
distances across continents in comfort and at high speed. The new Bentley
could play that role perfectly but not with four adults aboard. Coupés
inevitably require some compromise: style against space. The well-shaped
rear seats provide just enough headroom but not quite enough legroom for
tall passengers. The luggage compartment is unusually capacious for a car of
this kind, even including a ski-hatch between the rear seats.
Ulrich Eichhorn, Bentley’s engineering chief, draws a graph which has luxury
and refinement as one axis and sport and performance as the other. The
Continental GT, he says, is unique in sitting high at the centre of the
chart. My first drive bears this out, and I think Ric is really going to
love the Bentley.
VITAL STATISTICS
Model Bentley Continental GT
Engine type W12, 5,998cc
Power/Torque 552bhp @ 6100rpm / 479 lb ft @ 1600rpm
Transmission Six-speed automatic with paddle-shift, four-wheel drive
Suspension (front) Double wishbones, air springs (rear) multi-link air
springs
Tyres 275/40 VR 19
Fuel/CO2 16.5mpg combined / 410g/km
Acceleration 0 to 60mph: 4.8sec
Top speed 190mph plus
Price £110,000
Verdict Stylish, luxurious and expensive, the world's fastest
four-seater does exactly what is claimed for it